Recall what I said about the Holy Ghost, that He is God living, enjoying His Divine life. Creation is the image of God living, and hence of the Holy Ghost. When man was created, the Sacred Record says, "God breathed the breath [or spirit] of life into his face, and man became a living soul." With man, everything lives and enjoys its being with an enjoyment which is a reflection of the supreme living beatitude in God. Thus exclaims the writer of the Book of Wisdom: "The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole earth: and that, which containeth all things, hath knowledge of the voice." [Footnote 46]
[Footnote 46: Wisdom i. 7.]
It is the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God, the Lord and Life-giver, who, as holy Job declares, "hath adorned the heavens" with their radiant beauty, who hath filled the whole earth, and vivified it, so that it is not a dead but a living image of the Eternal, Omnipotent, Living God. Did I not say well, my brethren, that the mystery of the Holy Trinity is an illumination of the mystery of creation?
Look, again, at the Mystery of the Incarnation, in which are included the other Mysteries of the Regeneration and Redemption of man. We can not understand its manner. We cannot see how it is, any more than we can understand how the Son is begotten of the Father, or how the Holy Ghost proceeds from them both. But the Trinity illuminates that also, and enlightens us to see and believe it, now that it is revealed to us. Like Creation, it is an act of the Trinity, because it is God uniting His Divine Person of the Son to humanity, His created image. This is why our Lord, as Man as well as God, calls Himself the Son of God. This is why the Apostle calls us, who are His brethren in the flesh, sons of God. It is the act of God as the Father. "God so loved the world, as to give his only-begotten Son." [Footnote 47] It is an act of God as the Son. In His last discourse, Jesus says to His disciples: "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to the Father." [Footnote 48] It is an act of the Holy Ghost. As we say in the Creed, and as the Scripture testifies, "He was conceived by the Holy Ghost."
[Footnote 47: S. John iii. 16.]
[Footnote 48: Ibid. xvi. 23.]
[USCCB: John xvi. 28.]
The mystery of the Trinity thus enables us to recognize the Divinity of the Person of Jesus Christ, as also the sublime character and object of His Incarnation. It reveals to us the true destiny of man, and shows us how the very reason of creation is in God Himself, and is to find its end, its accomplishment and fruition in God. For, as you see, the Incarnation was an act, of which the Person of God Himself was the object. It was God communicating His Divine Life to the creature, and thus all creatures, through Jesus, who is the First-Born of them all, are to find their destiny, the end of their creation, in eternal union with the Divine Life. "I am the Life," said our Lord, and "because I live, you shall live." [Footnote 49] He and the Father are one. But, O wonderful revelation! "In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." [Footnote 50]
[Footnote 49: St. John xiv. 6 and 19.]
[Footnote 50: Ibid. 20.]
"God hath sent His only-begotten Son into the world," says St. John, "that we may live by Him." [Footnote 51] "Ye are the temples of the living God," [Footnote 52] exclaims St. Paul. "We are made partakers of the Divine nature," [Footnote 53] says St. Peter. And St. Paul again designates us, first, as the "partakers of Christ," [Footnote 54] and next as the "partakers of the Holy Ghost." [Footnote 55]
[Footnote 51: Ep. St. John iv. 9.]
[Footnote 52: 2 Cor. vi. 16.]
[Footnote 53: 2 Ep. St. Peter i. 4.]
[Footnote 54: Heb. iii. 14.]
[Footnote 55: Heb. vi. 4.]
Once more, our Lord bids us fear not the apparent annihilation of death. "I am the Resurrection and the Life. He that believeth in Me, though he be dead, shall live. And every one that liveth, and believeth in Me, shall not die for ever." [Footnote 56]